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Bemis Center, Contemporary Arts Residency Program, Omaha, NE. (published in Artist Trust's Journal, Spring 2005) Some of the more vibrant and innovative artist residency programs in the world take advantage of unusual circumstances and/or spaces. Whether it’s the deceptively genteel yet completely contemporary multi-disciplinary residency program at Château de La Napoule along France’s Cote D’Azur, or the converted military property of Headland Center for the Arts just outside of San Francisco, many residency programs begin with the vision of putting an out-of fashion, unused or under-used facility to new use. Needless to say, projects like these and the direct influence they’ve had on many of our best contemporary artists are almost always, in part, the vision of artists themselves. Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska is just such a place. Converted from an old burlap bag factory, Bemis has grown to become one of the most highly regarded residency programs for visual artists in the entire country. Begun in 1981 by artists Jun Kaneko, Tony Hepburn, Lorne Falke and Ree Schonlau, Bemis was conceived as a practical commitment to supporting artistic excellence by providing visiting visual artists with well-equipped studio spaces, living accommodations and monthly stipend awards that would allow and encourage them to work in a scale and with an uninterrupted focus that few have previously enjoyed. And more than twenty years later, more than 600 artists from around the world have taken part in the Bemis residency program, including a number of artists from Washington State. Just this past year, Artist Trust grant recipients Amanda Knowles (2004 GAP recipient), Saul Becker (2002 GAP recipient) and the artist team of Ben Beres, Zac Culler, and John Sutton (2003 GAP recipients), were all awarded two to three-month residencies at Bemis, respectively. As the residency program is built around the concept of providing artists with unusually ample studio arrangements and little time constraints, residents are continually surprised upon arrival by just how much space they’re provided. Bemis’ visiting artist quarters are spacious in a way not found at many other residency programs. As painter Saul Becker puts it: “I was shocked by my new home, a 1300 square foot sun filled studio with fifteen foot ceilings. It was all comfortably equipped with a small kitchen, bathroom, and a Murphy bed. The tour of the rest of the facilities was surreal. Living in Seattle for so long you get accustomed to a kind of preciousness regarding space or the lack thereof. In Omaha there seems to be only abundance. For instance, a whole floor in Bemis is available for installation work while another floor is filled with furniture and random supplies available for residents to use. It’s like a big free antique store.” Having taken time out from pursuing his MFA degree at Virginia Commonwealth University (with the blessing of his faculty), where he is currently a first-year candidate, Becker has found that his time at Bemis has resulted in a balance of time, space, and materials that has been inspiriting his picture of life after graduation. Aware that a future studio would not likely match Bemis’ largesse, Becker nevertheless feels that his time at Bemis has underscored the need to create a real professional studio space for himself upon graduating. And the community with other resident artists has also proven an inspiration as he’s been in serious conversation with artists already pursuing their careers full-time. “Being here has been an incredible glimpse into the future really and has allowed me to catch my breath and really focus in a way that’s strikingly different than graduate school,” says Becker, “what I’ve learned here will stay with me a long time.” The vast spaces of Bemis contributed to how Beres, Culler, and Sutton came to gain such notoriety during their residency. Their peripatetic wanderings throughout the building and beyond (see attached photos) are now part of the residency program’s lore. An initial plan, to build an installation piece along the lines of their previous site-specific works, was compromised by the group’s inability to decide on just where to build it. “Arguing over and over about which space to use led us to different ideas entirely,” offered Sutton. And the filmic performance stills that resulted led the trio to abandon traditional studio practice altogether and don eccentric personas and costume for their forays in and around downtown Omaha, performing overnight as hobos downtown or hitting the local tourist spots in prosthetic geriatric outfits. The team’s collective decision to forgo building an installation that might only be presented for one of their two months in residency (all materials and work must leave with visiting artists at the end of their residencies), led them to new trajectories that are now influencing and inspiring their upcoming projects. These projects include an installation next year wherein the team will live together for three months in an exhibition space at the Salt Lake Art Center in Utah, further investigating the character study performances they began while at Bemis. Beres, Culler, and Sutton were also inspired by their Bemis collaborations with husband and wife artist team Bushwick Farms, further underscoring the concept of dialogue and exchange among visiting artists. Amanda Knowles (see ‘Visiting Artist’s Perspective’) was challenged and inspired to attempt new directions with her work, beginning new installation works and a painting series that pushed her well beyond a recent focus on printmaking. An ingenious use of industrial space left vacant, Bemis stands as not only an inspiration to visiting artists but also the surrounding community. Omaha residents regularly attend resident artist talks (a required part of the residency program) and have continually supported Bemis’ two exhibition spaces, proving that contemporary art can thrive outside of major metropolitan centers. All of Bemis’ success leaves me wondering why a similar residency program hasn’t been created here in the Northwest. Perhaps a conversation is in order about how such a residency program might take root here in the Northwest and revise the abundance of under-used industrial architecture in some of the mid-sized cities of the Northwest. An international residency program in Tacoma, Bellingham, or Spokane sounds like a good fit, no? A Visiting Artist’s Perspective In 2004, I received an Artist Trust GAP award to help defray the costs of attending a residency at Centrum and, directly following, a subsequent three-month residency at Bemis. It was only with this support that I was able to go to both residencies and not worry about the financial end of things. It allowed me to spend my time focused on the work itself, not wondering how I was going to afford to get supplies (especially as I began to paint), or pay my studio rent in Seattle. This amazing gift, in turn, allowed my art to expand in response to what was a wonderful opportunity. Recently I’ve been trying to extend beyond printmaking. I had wanted to move my work into other realms and media and this was the perfect opportunity. I was to be at Bemis for three months without the use of a press and so the majority of my energy was to be taking place in my studio. For me this was a push. Everyone I spoke to asked about the press and I had to reply that there wasn’t one. At first this gave me the opportunity to draw more on my work, in more detail, more in depth. I had had a residency right before Bemis at Centrum in Port Townsend and had spent that time printing backgrounds on which I could begin these drawings. In this respect, although I was without the security blanket of a press, I had hit the ground running when I turned up at Bemis. So I drew and felt a yearning to go in other directions as well. With 12 plus hours a day in the studio there was a lot of room for experimenting in different things. I was really engaged and after three months (my residency was extended from 2 ½ months) I wasn’t ready to leave. I was finally feeling comfortable and was in the middle of many different projects and having really good discussions with many of the other six or seven resident artists. The live/work space that I was given was enormous, which at first was overwhelming, but by the end I was using all of the space easily. It has been hard to come back to my 200 square foot studio and make the work that I had begun there and that had looked small at Bemis. Early on I had a discussion on painting with one of the other residents and found myself making four 16” x 16” acrylic paintings. I hadn’t painted in over ten years and I was pushed by the conversation to get back into it. This was not something that I had expected or planned to do. I now know, however, that I will continue painting. Another major development in my work occurred two months into the time there when one of the other residents was readying to leave and was throwing out large photographic proofs from their studio. I took the paper so that I could make drawings on them and a couple of days later began to do cutouts of some of the images that I was working with. I have been continuing with these cut outs since returning, building installations that have pushed my work in different directions than I would have come up with in my own studio. Really meshing with the other residents allowed me to come up with ideas that I would never have come to alone in the studio. During the time that I was at Bemis there were many events, including gallery talks where each resident gave a 30-minute talk about their work at some point during their residency. Open to the public and well attended, these artist talks began a lot of good dialogue among the residents and the larger arts community there. I also gave a well-received talk at the University of Nebraska-Omaha during the last part of my residency. Overall, the staff at Bemis made every effort to include us in events that went on in the city, (music, theatre, movies, dinners, etc.), but also made it their aim to protect our time in the studio—a focus that influenced all the residents. |